The Big Questions Part 6 “Do You Want to Get Well?” Traditional Service Livestream
Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
We have the unfortunate distinction of being the generation that battled Covid and the resulting global pandemic. The number of deaths and the magnitude of the disruption and fallout is still being felt today.
One of the baffling and mystifying aspects of Covid is that you could be sick and not even know it, meaning you could test positive for the virus but show no signs or symptoms of the disease.
Jesus encounters a man who was an invalid for 38 years and asked him, “Do you want to get well?” On the surface it seems like an absurd question. “Do you want to get well?” Of course he does. The man had been trying every day for 38 years to get help. 38 long years of trying to find a cure for his disease. 38 years and no success. Jesus is asking a deeper question. The man doesn’t just have a disease, the disease has him. He’s become defined by his illness. Jesus in turn gives him new hope and a new identity.
People who are sick, for the most part, want to get well. The first step in healing is to seek help.
The Covid pandemic made me rethink a lot of things. What if we don’t even know we’re sick?
What if we’re unaware of what’s inside of us and the harm it can do to others?
What if we believe there’s nothing wrong with us and we don’t really need any help from anyone?
The first step in healing is to seek and ask for help.
Before that can ever happen:
The first step is to know and accept the fact that there’s something wrong inside of us.
“Do you want to get well?”, Jesus asks.
To which some of us might respond, “I didn’t know I was sick”.
And that’s the problem.
